


The End

by holless



Category: Hiveswap
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Sad, also tagging, im bad at writing forgive me, let me know if theres something i should tag this as that im forgetting, roxys a fucking badass but then again whats new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 09:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12129834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holless/pseuds/holless
Summary: Roxy arrives at the Harley-Claire residence to find broken windows, a traumatized kid in the treehouse and actual monsters running amok.  On top of all this, Joey is nowhere to be found.If you switch to Jude's perspective while you're supposed to be running from monsters as Joey, you get a cut-scene where Joey dies. Yeah. This is a fic about that.





	The End

Your name is Joey Claire, and you are absolutely sprinting up the stairs!

Your kid brother was smart enough to distract the beasts on your tail (with... a gun? Jude has a gun? Oh you're so gonna - no, not important right now) but that can't possibly last long. As a matter of fact, as you swing around the banister at the top of the stairs, you hear the deafening sound of the behemoth of a monster fumbling up the creaking wooden stairs. You then choose the worst time in your entire young life to get lost in thought.

_What's gonna happen if they catch me? Is it even close, is it just my imagination? Where did these monsters come from? **God, where did these monsters come from?** Can Jude see me from where he is- **Jude.**_

You, with a shaking arm holding on to the wall and multiple beasts still thundering up the stairs after you, then ponder on what your kid brother is currently thinking.

 

**> Reader: Be the other kid. **

Your name is Jude Harley, and you've never been so scared. However it most definitely does not seem like it!! If, say, some omnipresent third party narrator were to witness you shaking violently, clinging to the windowsill and riskily leaning far out of the treehouse for chance of a glimpse at your big sister, said narrator would surely pick up on only the most confident and daring of thoughts!

But deep down, you are not feeling at all confident and or daring. If Joey hesitated in her heroic absconding, even for a moment...

 

**> Reader: Be the one with very bad timing.**

You once again decide to be Joey, just in time to be grabbed around the waist by thick meaty arms. You scream instinctively, and fumble for your flashlight. The arm doing the fumbling gets maneuvered behind your back as a monster hands you over its head to the next monster. You manage to stop screaming by the time that monster hands you to the next.

Or... Drops you. You don't understand why glowing green light closes around you. And... you never get a chance to understand. You're Joey, and your story just abruptly ended. Your flashlight lingers on the cold wooden floor where you dropped it, and a somewhat sated behemoth of an Alternian beast wanders off toward the treehouse where the scent of more treats wafted from.

 

* * *

 

You are now Roxy Lalonde. Part time scientist. Part time coolest babysitter EVER. Part(?) time alcoholic as well, though you don't like dwelling on that.

You drive home with a trunk full of groceries, only slightly tipsy. (As always, somewhere the part of your subconscious that remains unaltered by alcohol is screaming at you to pull over, if not for your own safety then for your tiny charges who always hate seeing you drunk and would probably hate seeing you dead on the side of the road more. As always, you ignore that part of you.) You swing a right on some road you can't currently recall the name of, and officially exit the greater Hauntswitch area. Though Hauntswitch isn't really big enough to have a greater part at all. The area with the store and a McDonald's, you internally correct yourself.

You aren't _actually_ going home, you remind yourself. "home" is twenty-five minutes away, in the somewhat less obscure neighboring town to Hauntswitch. Home is a shitty apartment flat that you're very close to not paying your next rent on. You aren't necessarily broke - though you aren't far from it - you just don't ever spend any time there. Hence the little slip of referring to the Harley-Claire manor as home instead. You wonder how Jake would react to the babysitter he hired for his children moving into his house officially.

Said Harley-Claire manor is now in sight, and the road you're driving on gets a little more bumpy. You think you see a flickering black shape run alongside your car, but you obviously dismiss it as just another hallucination considering you're once again ~~really fucking drunk~~ mildly tipsy.

It's a little harder to dismiss it as a hallucination when you begin pulling into the driveway to see a broken window, the dog quivering inside of the way-too-small doghouse she only used twice as a puppy, and an honest to God motherfucking _monster_ with a luminescent green mouth and black scales right in your path to your typical parked position in the garage.

Needless to say, you floor it.

When that particular monster is no longer an issue, your next thought is of the kids. Your _next_ thought is _why the fuck are there monsters swarming around this house._ You abandon the latter thought as secondary, and throw the car door open to go find your fucking babies. You love these kids to death, and no way in hell are you letting them die at the hands of evil alien monsters. You made a fucking promise.

 

**> Reader: Be the kid that isn't dead**

You, once again, are Jude Harley. The only difference between now and the last time you were this particular young lad is the bravery bit is long absent. You are now huddling in the corner of the treehouse, a walkie-talkie uncomfortably seated in your lap and your arms around your knees. You are fresh out of daring thoughts. You are also pointedly ignoring the thumps of a monster ramming against the trunk of the tree, but it isn't too hard considering you can't see it through your tears, and you can't hear it due to your sobbing.

"Pick up. Joey. Please pick up. Please pick up."

It has been somewhere around an hour since last contact with your sister. She is surely safety tucked away in the attic, but you still very much wish she would respond to you. After all, the monsters that had been previously aggrieving her had left the inside of the house long ago, and had taken to circling your own hideout menacingly. She pretty much has free reign of the house! She can devise a plan to reunite with you! She can call for some help! You suppose she must not know that the interior of the house has been wiped clean, considering you can't contact to tell her.

She must have dropped the walkie-talkie. Oh, it must have ran out of batteries! No, she must have determined that the mysterious cult leaders in the distance were listening in, and figured the safest technique to prevent widespread knowledge of her location was to eliminate any and all contact with you! In that case, you should probably stop talking to her.

"Please pick up. Please pick up. Joey."

Yeah... And you're gonna do that... in just a moment...

_"Joey. Joey! Joey, please!"_

Right... About... N- The painfully loud bang of a gun causes you to jerk your head off your knees so violently that you hit your head on the wall, and your sobs immediately cease. Three more bangs follow, and you can't see anything out the window from your angle, but that doesn't stop you from staring at it in shock.

Silence.

The monsters are silent. The gun is silent. The breeze is silent. Your own breath is silent.

"Jude?" A familiar voice calls. You exhale so fast in your relief you nearly choke, and you crawl to the trapdoor so fast you fall onto your side. The walkie-talkie clatters somewhere behind you, and you throw the trapdoor on your floor open.

Lo and behold, your babysitter is standing on the ground next to the ladder, staring up at you with wide pink eyes and a rifle in her hands.

You scream her name far louder than what's strictly required and nearly launch yourself from the treehouse face first.

"Jude! Jude, shh, shh, I'm comin' up I'm comin' up," and then she's at the top of the ladder and then she's inside the treehouse and her arms are wrapped around you and just for a moment you think everything will be okay.

Then that moment fades as you realize Roxy smells like wine, and Joey's still in trouble or worse and the side of a real bright red gun is pressed uncomfortably to your stomach. But none of that matters as much as it should because the closest thing you have to a parent is here and she's holding you and it'll be okay, Roxy will make it okay. You sob onto her shoulder and she runs a hand incessantly through your hair, shooshing you and closing the trapdoor behind her.

 

**> Reader: Be the drunk babysitter.**

You return to being the usually irresponsible and even more usually drunk babysitter, but this time you have a quivering twelve year old in your arms. Said twelve year old had relaxed somewhat since you first located him, but he recently dissolved back into choked sobs at your inquiry to the location of your sister and he has not yet recovered. You've had more time to attempt to process what exactly is going on, and with this limited understanding you know that his tears are a _very, very bad sign._ You touch your charges shoulder to get his attention.

"Hey. Jude," he looks up at you with glossy eyes. "I'm gonna call your sister, 'kay?" He sniffles, and nods before burying his face back into your boob. You don't actually mind, or notice for that matter, and re-affix your hand to his head.

You dig your phone from your pocket and rapidly tap in the password with a practiced motion. Joey's contact name - Bubsy - is second on your list. Jude's whimpers continue to quiet down, and before you tap the name, you listen for any and all growls of monsters nearby. None. _Good fucking riddance._

Both of you go completely silent as the dull ring echoes through the treehouse.

One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Four rings. Five rings. _I'm sorry, I can't reach the phone right now. Please leave a message after the beep,_ says an automated response.

Jude holds you tighter. You put the phone down at your side and return the favor. There's a cold, sinking feeling in your gut.

 

* * *

 

You resume the act of being Roxy Lalonde. At least another hour has passed. You eventually convinced Jude to give you an explanation of the day so far, but the two of you said little beyond that. He eventually detached himself from you as well, and you mourn the loss. It was surprisingly easy to explain to him your plan of action for the recovery of his sister - the only drawback was while you would prefer he stay in the treehouse, he wanted to tag along. You agreed to the demand - while you figured he might be safer further away from the unexplored house, if any more monsters returned to your hideout the kid would be defenseless. You still made him swear to stay beside you the entire time, though, even if you knew he would anyway.

The plan isn't complex. go to the attic. Fight off any monsters in the way. Knock on the door. Call for Joey some. If Joey is located, bring her back to the treehouse and proceed to call the police. If Joey is not located, investigate the entire house until you find her and return to the treehouse to call the police. It's a pretty straightforward plan. You refuse to elaborate much on the ramifications of not finding her at all.

You climb down the ladder first - one-handed, as the other is holding a rifle - and the cold chills your bones. Somehow the coziness of the cluttered little hideout had kept the darkness at bay, but it's now glaringly obvious that any sign of the sun has left the sky. It's dark. You allow yourself a shiver as the autumn breeze bites your skin, and then step away from the ladder to allow your charge room to come down. He crawls down slowly, and you examine the surroundings just as slowly with your gun at the ready. Never has this home, the place you've semi-lived at for five years now seemed so threatening. Every breeze is the breath of some demon stalking about. Every rustle is one brushing against a tree.

Jude reaches the ground, and fists his hand in your shirt. He's one of those kids that seems more like an adult at times - He can obviously be immature, and sometimes is trying a touch too hard, but he's also as intelligent and compassionate as can be. He's never shown any weakness around you, and you know it's because this is the impression he wants to give off. He wants everyone to think he's an adult in a kids body, because maybe if they do, the shortcomings he has will be less obvious. You've never seen him be so vulnerable.

You speed walk - somewhat wobbly, even copious amounts of adrenaline can't overcome the alcohol in your system - toward the back door besides the broken window, and you think of Jude's sister.

Joey is similar to her brother in that she acts beyond her age, but you're fairly sure that's just how she is. No facade - the life she's lived and the struggles she's been through have made her seem at least five years older than she should be. However, unlike Jude, Joey has no problems with displaying weaknesses. She's lonely, and she's spiteful, and she's confused, and these are the pieces that make it obvious that she is not in fact a twenty-five year old appointed with caring for a house and a little brother - she's only fourteen. Joey is only fourteen, and when she was about two, your eleven year old self made a fucking promise that this little lady will have the best goddamn life, despite a shitty father and a dead mom and whatever all else is fated to happen to her. And you stuck to that all the way to twenty-three, because you simply wanted to see Joey's story. You want to see how she grows.

And you're starting to wonder if this is how the story ends.

You turn a corner to face the stairs, and shoot the monster on top right in the bright green mouth before it even sees you. You keep moving.

You walk up the stairs and turn the next corner.

There's a flashlight lying on the floor, flickering as the batteries run out, and a patch of blood sits beside it.

 

**the end.**

**Author's Note:**

> i forced my twelve year old brother to play hiveswap and dared him to switch to judes perspective, and then after laughing/internally crying abt it for five minutes i immediately told him that i was gonna go write fanfiction. he thought i was joking. this was like four hours ago fyi, there was like. zero planning put into this it just kinda happened
> 
> anyway heres this, im so sorry i cant write. at all.
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> ~~i cant believe i wrote a fanfiction abt hiveswap and it wasnt about xefros, precious angel, actual light of my life. what is this~~


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